NAME

debhelper - the debhelper tool suite

SYNOPSIS

dh_* [-v] [-a] [-i] [-s] [--no-act] [-ppackage] [-Npackage][-Ptmpdir]

DESCRIPTION

Debhelper is used to help you build a debian package. The philosophy
behind debhelper is to provide a collection of small, simple, and
easily understood tools that are used in debian/rules to automate
various common aspects of building a package. This means less work for
you, the packager. It also, to some degree means that these tools can
be changed if debian policy changes, and packages that use them will
require only a rebuild to comply with the new policy.
A typical debian/rules file that uses debhelper will call several
debhelper commands in sequence, or use dh(1) to automate this process.
Examples of rules files that use debhelper are in
/usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/
To create a new debian package using debhelper, you can just copy one
of the sample rules files and edit it by hand. Or you can try the dh-
make package, which contains a dh_make command that partially automates
the process. For a more gentle introduction, the maint-guide debian
package contains a tutorial about making your first package using
debhelper.

DEBHELPERCONFIGFILES

Many debhelper commands make use of files in debian/ to control what
they do. Besides the common debian/changelog and debian/control, which
are in all packages, not just those using debhelper, some additional
files can be used to configure the behavior of specific debhelper
commands. These files are typically named debian/package.foo (where
"package" of course, is replaced with the package that is being acted
on).
For example, dh_installdocs uses files named debian/package.docs to
list the documentation files it will install. See the man pages of
individual commands for details about the names and formats of the
files they use. Generally, these files will list files to act on, one
file per line. Some programs in debhelper use pairs of files and
destinations or slightly more complicated formats.
Note that if a package is the first (or only) binary package listed in
debian/control, debhelper will use debian/foo if no debian/package.foo
file can be found.
In some rare cases, you may want to have different versions of these
files for different architectures. If files named
debian/package.foo.arch exist, where "arch" is the same as the output
of "dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH", then they will be used in
preference to other, more general files.
In many cases, these config files are used to specify various types of
files. Documentation or example files to install, files to move, and so
on. When appropriate, in cases like these, you can use standard shell
wildcard characters (’?’ and ’*’ and ’[..]’ character classes) in the
files.
You can also put comments in these files; lines beginning with "#" are
ignored.

SHAREDDEBHELPEROPTIONS

The following command line options are supported by all debhelper
programs.
-v, --verbose
Verbose mode: show all commands that modify the package build
directory.
--no-act
Do not really do anything. If used with -v, the result is that the
command will output what it would have done.
-a, --arch
Act on all architecture dependent packages.
-i, --indep
Act on all architecture independent packages.
-ppackage, --package=package
Act on the package named "package". This option may be specified
multiple times to make debhelper operate on a given set of
packages.
-s, --same-arch
This is a smarter version of the -a flag, that is used in some rare
circumstances. It understands that if the control file lists
"Architecture: i386" for the package, the package should not be
acted on on other architectures. So this flag makes the command act
on all "Architecture: any" packages, as well as on any packages
that have the current architecture explicitly specified. Contrast
to the -a flag, which makes the command work on all packages that
are not architecture independent.
-Npackage, --no-package=package
Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option
lists the package as one that should be acted on.
--ignore=file
Ignore the specified file. This can be used if debian/ contains a
debhelper config file that a debhelper command should not act on.
Note that debian/compat, debian/control, and debian/changelog can’t
be ignored, but then, there should never be a reason to ignore
those files.
For example, if upstream ships a debian/init that you don’t want
dh_installinit to install, use --ignore=debian/init
-Ptmpdir, --tmpdir=tmpdir
Use "tmpdir" for package build directory. The default is
debian/<package>
--mainpackage=package
This little-used option changes the package which debhelper
considers the "main package", that is, the first one listed in
debian/control, and the one for which debian/foo files can be used
instead of the usual debian/package.foo files.

COMMONDEBHELPEROPTIONS

The following command line options are supported by some debhelper
programs. See the man page of each program for a complete explanation
of what each option does.
-n Do not modify postinst/postrm/etc scripts.
-Xitem, --exclude=item
Exclude an item from processing. This option may be used multiple
times, to exclude more than one thing.
-A, --all
Makes files or other items that are specified on the command line
take effect in ALL packages acted on, not just the first.

NOTES

Multiplebinarypackagesupport
If your source package generates more than one binary package,
debhelper programs will default to acting on all binary packages when
run. If your source package happens to generate one architecture
dependent package, and another architecture independent package, this
is not the correct behavior, because you need to generate the
architecture dependent packages in the binary-arch debian/rules target,
and the architecture independent packages in the binary-indep
debian/rules target.
To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which
packages are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs
accept the -a, -i, -p, and -s parameters. These parameters are
cumulative. If none are given, debhelper programs default to acting on
all packages listed in the control file.
Automaticgenerationofdebianinstallscripts
Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of debian
maintainer scripts. If you want these automatically generated things
included in your existing debian maintainer scripts, then you need to
add "#DEBHELPER#" to your scripts, in the place the code should be
added. "#DEBHELPER#" will be replaced by any auto-generated code when
you run dh_installdeb.
If a script does not exist at all and debhelper needs to add something
to it, then debhelper will create the complete script.
All debhelper commands that automatically generate code in this way let
it be disabled by the -n parameter (see above).
Note that the inserted code will be shell code, so you cannot directly
use it in a perl script. If you would like to embed it into a perl
script, here is one way to do that (note that I made sure that $1, $2,
etc are set with the set command):
my $temp="set -e\nset -- @ARGV\n" . << 'EOF';
#DEBHELPER#
EOF
system ($temp) / 256 == 0
or die "Problem with debhelper scripts: $!";
Automaticgenerationofmiscellaneousdependencies.
Some debhelper commands may make the generated package need to depend
on some other packages. For example, if you use dh_installdebconf(1),
your package will generally need to depend on debconf. Or if you use
dh_installxfonts(1), your package will generally need to depend on a
particular version of xutils. Keeping track of these miscellaneous
dependencies can be annoying since they are dependant on how debhelper
does things, so debhelper offers a way to automate it.
All commands of this type, besides documenting what dependencies may be
needed on their man pages, will automatically generate a substvar
called ${misc:Depends}. If you put that token into your debian/control
file, it will be expanded to the dependencies debhelper figures you
need.
This is entirely independent of the standard ${shlibs:Depends}
generated by dh_makeshlibs(1), and the ${perl:Depends} generated by
dh_perl(1). You can choose not to use any of these, if debhelper’s
guesses don’t match reality.
Packagebuilddirectories
By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory
used for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/<package>.
Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This
is supported by the -P flag. For example, "dh_installdocs
-Pdebian/tmp", will use debian/tmp as the temporary directory. Note
that if you use -P, the debhelper programs can only be acting on a
single package at a time. So if you have a package that builds many
binary packages, you will need to also use the -p flag to specify which
binary package the debhelper program will act on.
Debhelpercompatibilitylevels
From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be
made to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change
and its author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes
from breaking existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatibility
levels was introduced. You tell debhelper which compatibility level it
should use, and it modifies its behavior in various ways.
Tell debhelper what compatibility level to use by writing a number to
debian/compat. For example, to turn on V7 mode:
% echo 7 > debian/compat
Unless otherwise indicated, all debhelper documentation assumes that
you are using the most recent compatibility level, and in most cases
does not indicate if the behavior is different in an earlier
compatibility level, so if you are not using the most recent
compatibility level, you’re advised to read below for notes about what
is different in earlier compatibility levels.
These are the available compatibility levels:
V1 This is the original debhelper compatibility level, and so it is
the default one. In this mode, debhelper will use debian/tmp as the
package tree directory for the first binary package listed in the
control file, while using debian/<package> for all other packages
listed in the control file.
This mode is deprecated.
V2 In this mode, debhelper will consistently use debian/<package> as
the package tree directory for every package that is built.
This mode is deprecated.
V3 This mode works like V2, with the following additions:
- Debhelper config files support globbing via * and ?, when
appropriate. To turn this off and use those characters raw,
just prefix with a backslash.
- dh_makeshlibs makes the postinst and postrm scripts call
ldconfig.
- Every file in etc/ is automatically flagged as a conffile
by dh_installdeb.
This mode is deprecated.
V4 Changes from V3 are:
- dh_makeshlibs -V will not include the debian part of the
version number in the generated dependency line in the
shlibs file.
- You are encouraged to put the new ${misc:Depends} into
debian/control to supplement the ${shlibs:Depends} field.
- dh_fixperms will make all files in bin/ directories and in
etc/init.d executable.
- dh_link will correct existing links to conform with policy.
V5 Changes from V4 are:
- Comments are ignored in debhelper config files.
- dh_strip --dbg-package now specifies the name of a package
to put debugging symbols in, not the packages to take the
symbols from.
- dh_installdocs skips installing empty files.
- dh_install errors out if wildcards expand to nothing.
V6 Changes from V5 are:
- Commands that generate maintainer script fragements will
order the fragements in reverse order for the prerm and
postrm scripts.
- dh_installwm will install a slave manpage link for
x-window-manager.1.gz, if it sees the man page in
usr/share/man/man1 in the package build directory.
- dh_builddeb did not previously delete everything matching
DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE, if it was set to a list of things to
exclude, such as "CVS:.svn:.git". Now it does.
- dh_installman allows overwriting existing man pages in the
package build directory. In previous compatibility levels
it silently refuses to do this.
V7 This is the recommended mode of operation.
Changes from V6 are:
- dh_install, will fall back to looking for files in
debian/tmp if it doesn’t find them in the current directory
(or wherever you tell it look using --srcdir). This allows
dh_install to interoperate with dh_auto_install, which
installs to debian/tmp, without needing any special
parameters.
- dh_clean will read debian/clean and delete files listed
there.
- dh_clean will delete toplevel *-stamp files.
- dh_installchangelogs will guess at what file is the
upstream changelog if none is specified.
Docdirectorysymlinks
Sometimes it is useful to make a package not contain a
/usr/share/doc/package directory at all, instead placing just a
dangling symlink in the binary package, that points to some other doc
directory. Policy says this is ok if your package depends on the
package whose doc directory it uses. To accomplish this, just don’t
tell debhelper to install any documentation files into the package, and
use dh_link to set up the symlink (or do it by hand), and debhelper
should do the right thing: notice it is a dangling symlink and not try
to install a copyright file or changelog.
udebs
Debhelper includes support for udebs. To create a udeb with debhelper,
add "XC-Package-Type: udeb" to the package’s stanza in debian/control,
and build-depend on debhelper (>= 4.2). Debhelper will try to create
udebs that comply with debian-installer policy, by making the generated
package files end in ".udeb", not installing any documentation into a
udeb, skipping over preinst, postrm, prerm, and config scripts, etc.
Othernotes
In general, if any debhelper program needs a directory to exist under
debian/, it will create it. I haven’t bothered to document this in all
the man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make
debian/<package>/DEBIAN/ before trying to put files there,
dh_installmenu knows you need a debian/<package>/usr/share/menu/ before
installing the menu files, etc.
Once your package uses debhelper to build, be sure to add debhelper to
your Build-Depends line in debian/control. You should build-depend on a
version of debhelper equal to (or greater than) the debhelper
compatibility level your package uses. So if your package used
compatibility level 7:
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7)

ENVIRONMENT

DH_VERBOSE
Set to 1 to enable verbose mode. Debhelper will output every
command it runs that modifies files on the build system.
DH_COMPAT
Temporarily specifies what compatibility level debhelper should run
at, overriding any value in debian/compat.
DH_NO_ACT
Set to 1 to enable no-act mode.
DH_OPTIONS
Anything in this variable will be prepended to the command line
arguments of all debhelper commands. This is useful in some
situations, for example, if you need to pass -p to all debhelper
commands that will be run. One good way to set DH_OPTIONS is by
using "Target-specific Variable Values" in your debian/rules file.
See the make documentation for details on doing this.
DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE
If set, this adds the value the variable is set to to the -X
options of all commands that support the -X option. Moreover,
dh_builddeb will rm -rf anything that matches the value in your
package build tree.
This can be useful if you are doing a build from a CVS source tree,
in which case setting DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS will prevent any CVS
directories from sneaking into the package you build. Or, if a
package has a source tarball that (unwisely) includes CVS
directories, you might want to export DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS in
debian/rules, to make it take effect wherever your package is
built.
Multiple things to exclude can be separated with colons, as in
DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS:.svn